


coming full circle

by tinbox



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Reunion, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4559811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinbox/pseuds/tinbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You meet old friends when you least expect it.</i>
</p>
<p>Iron Bull/Dorian reunion fic.</p>
<p>It just occured to me that <i>what if</i> there was Dragon Age 4 and it was set in Tevinter in 10 years and there was an Iron Bull/Dorian reunion because <i>that could happen</i>. So, I was just imagining how that cutscene could go. (I love, for once, being in a fandom where things are actually canon.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming full circle

**Author's Note:**

> Myra is the imaginary new PC for this fictitious DA4, but I’m not trying to make this into a OC fest, don’t worry, I just wanted this scene to play out through the eyes of a third party, as it would in the game. Subsequently, I couldn’t help developing a bit of scene setting because it felt a bit weird not to have any background story, sorry about that.

It would be easier for her to move through the streets of Minrathous by herself, Myra realises this, but she is not taking any chances. This fucking city already has her on her toes. Monsters in the forest would cause her little pause, even wyverns and giant spiders don’t make her skin crawl since beasts at least are only doing what beasts do. Bandits? Pah, she’s probably dined with some of them, and while she does not agree with their methods or even goals, at least their brutality is honest. The seedy underbelly of the streets, _that_ she can stomach - is, in fact, used to. But it’s this that sets her teeth on edge, the carefully stretched smile of a laetan, the composed stance of an altus, the finely tailored gowns that hide knives much more dangerous than physical ones: the flick of a wrist, the inclination of a head, a soft word spoken that could destroy you better than any weapon. It’s a game she wants no part of.

She tugs the hood closer to her face and glances at her companions from the side of her eye. She’ll feel easier when they’re out from under the eyes of the nobility and past the market square, in the more familiar atmosphere of streets filled with taverns and brothels where these coiffured peacocks never set foot.

She needs to toughen up, though, she knows. If she’s going to see this one through, she needs to develop a better pokerface, get rid of the shiver that runs through her at the very sight of these smarmy bastards. She’s gonna have to learn how to blend in.

Blending in would have been easier alone, of course. She, at least, is human, but her compatriots are not, and she can sense the glances they draw even without checking. It’s not every day that you see a human walking openly with a qunari and a dwarf in Tevinter. That was probably her first mistake, bringing them both here so indiscreetly, but she does not have enough hubris to pretend that she could meet with a shady black market slave trader without some sort of backup and, well, Helga and The Iron Bull are all that she’s got.

The Iron Bull is a curious but comfortable sort of man, she finds, but not one she trusts unconditionally yet. She knows he’ll have her back in a fight, but everyone’s got an agenda, and she isn’t sure yet what his is. She’s warming to him, though, to his easy banter, his flippant flirting that barely means anything apart from a way to pass the time. It’s almost homey, reminds her of Tami and Karl and the evenings by the waterfront, curled around their makeshift fire. She found Bull in a tavern, cheating at cards and drinking apparently a little bit too heavily if the side-eye that his companion - Stitches, she later found out - was giving him was any indication. She’s still not quite sure what the backstory there is but she’s pretty sure there is one, given how relieved his Chargers had seemed to find him something to do other than polishing tavern benches with his arse. _Fucking finally_ , had been Krem’s precise words, if she remembers correctly, when Bull had deemed Myra’s offer interesting enough to entertain.

That was four months ago. She’s since managed to figure out that the Chargers have spent the last two years on a dry spell, apparently mostly caused by whatever lethargic mood Bull has been harbouring rather than lack of job offers. She asked once and Bull shrugged it off as ‘the jobs being too small-time to bother with’, but she can tell it’s something more than that, too. They all seem to know but nobody will tell her what exactly happened two years back and why that would put a man like The Iron Bull into a slump. She doesn’t blame them. She wouldn’t tell her life story to some virtual stranger, either. They’ll get there in time. She thinks that Krem, at least, is starting to warm up to her, if the lopsided grin he sometimes gets on his face is any clue.

Helga then... Helga is another story entirely. Helga is 200 pounds of barely contained crazy in a 100-pound bag, and Myra is still not entirely sure how she ended up with her on her team. One day she just came across some muggers attacking a travelling merchant and his hired muscle, and the next day, she’s escorting the merchant into town and leaving with the hired muscle in tow, a dwarf with a sword almost as tall as she and a sneaky way of sticking to your heels. Helga barrels into fights like a cross between an angry bee and a drunk druffalo, but her odd fighting style accompanied with her sheer pleasure for fighting make her a surprisingly handy companion on the road filled with bandits and wild animals. It helps that she seems to get along with Bull like a house on fire, both taking gleeful pleasure in recounting past battles and comparing scars. She’s also apparently a sucker for both adventure and a sob story, since Myra had barely finished explaining about her missing sister when Helga was already packing her bags and _insisting_ to join the party. And here they are, Helga at her side, going to meet with a slave trader to exchange an ancient elven artefact for some information.

One would think that there would be no need for black market slave trade in Tevinter of all places, but alas, one would be wrong. Where there is business, there is always a way to make it dirty. Dirtier, in this case. Donovan is not in the business of bringing slaves _into_ Tevinter. Oh no. Donovan’s business is smuggling slaves _out_ of Tevinter, but not to freedom, not like he convinces the slaves so that they’ll go with him, risk their lives to escape their owners and slip through the Dark Roads to get as far away from Minrathous as possible. No. If they make it out of the Dark Roads alive, there are new shackles waiting for them on the other side, to be sold for high profit to owners in Ferelden, Orlais, wherever there is someone ruthless enough to take them for indentured labour in mines all over Thedas. She’s heard murmurs about it before, whispers in taverns and roadside inns, but never before found confirmation. And it sickens her that that’s not even why she’s here, now, to do anything about it. She’s here to find and rescue Jenna, and the rest will have to wait.

Not that she isn’t ready to slit this man’s throat.

“We had an agreement!” she almost growls, and the man only smiles wider. “I go dungeon digging for your fucking artefact and you give me your information on where they’re keeping Jenna. That was the deal!”

“Ah, girlie, the price has changed,” and that’s when she feels the shift in the air, the feel of people stepping out of the shadows to flank them and block their exit. “One artefact, though precious, does not make quite as much money as I could make from _three_ usable pieces of merchandise in top condition.”

She’s been had.

Fuck.

Krem is never going to let her hear the end of this.

The fight is not an easy one, even though Donovan’s men are not the best of fighters. Bull is a formidable opponent, but in the close quarters of the underground tunnels his best qualities do not have enough room to come out and play. Myra is good with her blades, and Helga can handle a sword and has a tendency to scare her opponents with the sheer stubbornness and mad-charge attitude that she takes to fighting, but they’re still vastly outnumbered. Nonetheless, the close quarters also mean that there’s too many people in too small a space for the enemy majority to really work to their advantage; it’s easier for the three of them to slash at the many around them than for the many to get to the few foes amongst friends. They’ve gotten quite good at working together over the past few months of travelling, sliding easily into formation and covering each others’ backs. It’s hard work but eventually they manage to even out the numbers, Myra tricking some to taking friendly fire, Bull quite literally bashing heads together and Helga just chopping away at anything she can reach with a gleeful smile on her face.

Donovan must notice that the upper hand he thought he had is quickly slipping away from him. Myra can see from the side of her eye him turning tail and fleeing further into the tunnel. She takes off after him. It doesn’t take long for her to catch up; he’s still a merchant at heart, not a fighter, even if he can wield a blade, and too much time sitting on his arse counting his money makes him easy picking. A few clanks of metal against metal is all it takes before her dagger slips past his guard and into his chest. A gasp as breath whooshes out of his lungs; a cough as blood spurts to his mouth; a groan as fingers still feebly try to pry her hold loose.

“Tell me where she is,” she demands.

“Foolish child!” he chuckles, even through his bloody grin, “Did you really think that I even knew? She’s probably festering in a brothel somewhere, like is fit for you Nevarran dogs.”

It’s only as she pulls her dagger from the squelching flesh of her opponent, the only thing keeping his body - now a corpse - up before it slides to the floor, that she notices the chase has taken her deep into the tunnels, quite far away from the others. She’s about to turn back to return to where she can just hear the last scuffles of the fight dying out, certain that The Iron Bull and Helga are taking care of it, when she hears the slight rasp of foot on gravel behind her.

She twists around, daggers at the ready.

The man steps out of the shadows, hands poised carefully in front of him, palms pressed together, almost as if praying, but calm, collected and, she notes to her frustration, slightly amused. He doesn’t seem to be attacking, which she finds strange in the wake of the fight. She frowns, gripping her weapons with more purpose in warning.

“Calm, my dear,” he says, his pronunciation immediately marking him as altus, if his fancy clothes and carefully curled moustache hadn’t done that already. His smile is slick and smooth, placating, but she doesn’t trust smarmy bastards for one bit and so, when he begins to take a step forward, she raises her dagger, pointing it at his throat.

He halts his step, raising his hands, palms forward now, in a gesture of peace. _Very well_ , his body seems to say, _I understand_.

She knows he’s a mage, of course he’s a mage, an altus in Tevinter, so it’s not like her daggers are much proof against fire, but it’s not _that_ that puts her on edge. It’s the easy way that the man looks at her, unthreatening, unthreatened. She can’t parse it out.

“Who are you? What do you want?” she spits out.

“I have to say, I am quite impressed by your footwork, even though arriving in a city unnoticed is something you have yet to master.”

She flushes with embarrassment. “Yeah, well, screw you too, mister. I didn’t come here to do vanishing tricks.”

He quirks a smile at that. “Nonetheless, it would seem--” he starts to say, just as The Iron Bull marches up the tunnel to them, bellowing, “Hey boss--”

The man stops, his mouth frozen on unspoken words, eyes widening.

What confuses her more is the way Bull seems to do the same for a long, stretching moment.

And then chaos erupts.

Bull makes a sound that sounds something like a roar and charges forward at the man, tackling him by the midriff. She’s a bit shocked by the swiftness of his reaction, always forgetting that for a big man, Bull can move surprisingly fast, and even in her confusion she automatically drops to a defensive stance, readying herself for the bursts of magic that are bound to come charging forth from the man’s fingers the second he catches his breath again.

But then she has a second to take in the scene unfolding before her and she realises that Bull is not tackling the man to the ground; he’s lifting him up in the air.

The sound that he made, it was not a roar. It was _laughing_.

“You great big oaf!” the man shouts, but there’s a grin spreading on his face, the smarmy bastard mask cracking, his fingers curling tightly around Bull’s horns as if they are used to settling there.

Bull jounces him, arms like tree trunks wrapped around his waist and pressing him against his chest, neck craned back to look at the slighter man now peering down at him from the heights.

“I heard there was a qunari with her but I didn’t think..." The words die out on a chuckle. “Let me down, you lummox. You’ll bump my head against the ceiling.”

Bull sets him down again, but instead of clapping him on his shoulder like he would one of his boys upon returning to base, his big hand lingers on the man’s waist, fingers curling into the small of his back, standing just a smidgen too close, and his wide grin slides into something softer, more tender.

Oh.

_Oh_.

Oh goddamnit. She’s gonna have yet another tag-along on her quest, isn’t she? And a vint, of all things. He’s probably gonna complain the second his clothes get a bit of mud on them.

She stomps her foot and turns around to find Helga.

All she wanted was to find her sister, not to become the leader of a conga line.

Goddamnit. Goddamnit all to hell.

**Author's Note:**

> So, there. I have half a mind of adding something to this, from another pov perhaps, but then again, I don't know, I can't come up with anything resembling a plot to continue with. Feel free to speculate in comments. ;) I hope you enjoyed my flight of fancy nonetheless! I for one would love to see our old friends popping up in (possible) future games.


End file.
